BIRMINGHAM Council workers will be guaranteed a minimum of £7.20 an hour if Labour seizes control of the authority next month.

The party claimed 2,743 of the lowest-paid staff, most of them women in cleaning and cooking jobs earning between £6.39 and £7.15 per hour, would see their pay rise under the election pledge.

The current legal minimum wage is £6.08 an hour and would see a low paid part-time worker on 16 hours a week improve their annual income by £686.

Labour group leader Sir Albert Bore said: “People deserve more than the poverty level of the minimum wage.

“These are often people who work in difficult circumstances providing care for others.

“We need a motivated and committed workforce open to change. All the evidence suggests this simple cost effective change will improve morale, job quality and service delivery, with very little increase in costs.”

The move would add £1.2 million to the council’s wage bill, a sum Labour called “achievable within the current budget constraints”.

Labour needs to take only four extra seats on May 3 to win control of the council from the ruling Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition.

And Sir Albert said any Labour administration would use council deals as a lever to ensure staff working for contractors also earned a living wage.

And a new Buy Birmingham First scheme will be introduced for all new contracts and purchases under £173,000 – the figure at which EU tender regulations kick in – to boost the local economy.

“That is Labour’s vision,” he said. “We will use our purchasing power to help rebuild our local economy.”